By MARK A. KASTEL
Will your actions/inaction be responsible for killing your neighbors or family members?
This is not hyperbole. Many others are discussing the utility of immunization, as most of those hospitalized and dying now are unvaccinated. But whether we’ve had the vaccine or not, our behavior is going to have a direct impact on the life-threatening risks to others. The reality is we are in the middle of a pandemic, not at the end, and our actions are going to determine how many people in our community might die as a result.
Hospitals, including here in Viroqua and La Crosse, are operating at maximum capacity. According to the New York Times [12-14-2021], the national trajectory of new infections (right now predominantly the Delta strain) is up 49% in the past two weeks. Deaths are up 40%.
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, 28 people were turned away from an emergency room at a Green Bay hospital last week. Two of them had strokes. Some had to travel hours to find care. There was no one to attend to their critical needs locally.
I have a friend who knew someone who was airlifted out of Eau Claire to the Twin Cities, also last week. Now hospitals in Minneapolis/St. Paul are full as well.
Intensive care units are at or above capacity in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
There are no ICU beds at Vernon Memorial. If someone is sicker than they have the technology or staffing to care for, the standard practice is to transfer them to Madison or La Crosse. But those facilities are full. That means that people are staying in Viroqua and getting a different level of care than they would normally receive at a large medical center.
And because of staffing challenges at local nursing homes, hospitals are being forced to spend precious space and staff time caring for individuals who would normally be discharged but have nowhere else to go.
If that’s not enough, unlike last year, influenza is beginning to cause hospitalizations, as well.
And it’s not just Covid patients who are in danger. If your mother has a stroke, your father has a heart attack, or you are involved in a traffic accident, there might not be the capacity to care for you and your loved ones. You may have to wait hours for medical attention locally or seek help hours away. And if we keep going down this road, there might, literally, be nowhere left to turn.
Even if you are lucky enough to find a bed, the physical and psychological well-being of many of the nurses, doctors, and support staff who will be caring for you has been pushed to the extreme — do you think they have the resources to do their best work under these circumstances? NPR reports some hospitals in Colorado that used to have two nurses assigned to each ICU incubated patient now have just one nurse caring for three patients!
There are places in the country where everyone is still masking up. There are places where businesses have changed their management model. But that’s not happening consistently here in Vernon or La Crosse counties. It’s time to think about every decision we make and how it is going to impact others. I know, firsthand, that this is inconvenient, distressing, depressing, and certainly a challenge to businesses that would like to operate more normally. But the stakes are too high to ignore the potential consequences.
There are a few businesses in Viroqua that require masks. If you are a patron, it’s not that difficult to put a mask on for 15 minutes (the staff is already making an eight-hour commitment or longer to protect you). But every business should be seriously contemplating what needs to be done to protect their employees and the community at large.
Vaccines are proving to lessen the chance of serious illness, hospitalization, and death. But even if you are vaccinated, you could still contract the virus and spread it to others. This pathogen is diabolical. It is readily transmittable before we have any discernible symptoms. An N95 mask will protect you. But if everyone is wearing some kind of mask, we all protect each other.
Many businesses have curbside delivery available. Please don’t just order from Amazon as a default. That’s pretty easy, but if you do, after we’re done with the pandemic, many of our wonderful local businesses might no longer be here. There hasn’t been a store I have contacted that hasn’t been more than happy to take my credit card over the phone and set my purchase outside the door for me to pick up (with an underlying health problem and supporting someone who is medically vulnerable, I have personally been avoiding going into stores and business as much as possible).
Even during the holiday season, you might ask yourself if every time you are indoors with others is a necessity. Outside is a heck of a lot safer, and the weather has been unusually warm. A week ago, I entertained guests with hot, homemade chicken soup and warm bread out on the picnic table (I know, pretty radical! But a good time was had by all — you would think we were just skiing in Aspen, Colo.). Wearing masks or switching to virtual attendance at events whenever possible will also mitigate everyone’s risk during this current wave of increased infections.
Along with protecting ourselves, our actions, together, will have an impact on many others who might be more vulnerable than we are.
Mark Kastel is a longtime farm policy analyst and director of OrganicEye, an industry watchdog based in Washington, DC. He maintains his office on his farm in rural La Farge, Wis., just outside the tiny burg of Rockton.
